Leadership Expert Robert E. Kaplan: Self-Improvement Brought to Life

NEW YORK, Oct. 11, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- So many of us want to do better and be better.

"Often that means grappling with yourself, and it's not necessarily easy or straightforward," says Robert E. Kaplan, author of Grappling: Leaders Striving to Improve (2024, River Grove Books.)

It's a book of short stories that bring to life what it's like to work on yourself with the help of a trained person—the challenge of improving yourself. The stories are based on real people that Kaplan coached (but names and details are changed to protect confidentiality).

"You don't just witness these leaders in the office," says Kaplan, president of Kaplan DeVries, consultants to senior managers on leadership. "You get to follow them into their homes. Their spouses get involved."  

With over 30 years in leadership consulting, Kaplan has published extensively, in Harvard Business Review and the Sloan Management Review, among many others. His last book was Fear Your Strengths: What You're Best at Could Be Your Biggest Problem.

In these stories Kaplan illuminates the myriad ways high-performing executives undermine themselves because of bad habits and misguided beliefs that are blind spots.

In the book you meet a variety of leader types: a CEO fixated on an unworkable strategy, an executive who can't handle pushback and a brilliant technology leader who can't stop spewing knowledge. At the other extreme, you encounter a CEO who has trouble leaning in, a division head who lacks confidence interpersonally, and a turnaround executive focused on results, not enough on people.

The executive coaches in each story use a 360-degree process that includes interviews with the leaders, their coworkers (bosses, peers, direct reports), and even their family members (especially the spouse.) 

Kaplan was an early developer of 360-degree surveys in business as a feedback tool, and he invented one that won a patent, the Leadership Versatility Index. He also led an R&D effort at the Center for Creative Leadership that resulted in a forerunner of executive coaching.

"Maturity is not just knowing your worst tendencies but getting a handle on them," says Kaplan.

"To improve is to grapple with yourself, but it's often not a fair fight. Your interest in improving is rivalled if not overmatched by the mental factors and forces that made you what you are and that keep you that way," says Kaplan.

Kaplan offers these takeaways for leaders who want to change:

When you try to change, often willpower isn't enough. Something stands in your way.

To get it out of the way, you need to find out what it is. A crooked thought, a needless fear, an overheated ambition, an unrealistic expectation?

If self-awareness is hard to come by, then consider getting help. It wouldn't have to be a professional. An able friend could be just the thing.

Ultimately, it's a fight and the fight is with yourself. Good luck vanquishing your foe!

Working on yourself is hard to do well on your own because it can quickly become uncomfortable or involve beliefs or needs that you're not aware of, as Kaplan suggests.

"This is where a guide comes in, someone who knows the terrain of self-work for leaders, who listens perceptively and guides with a light hand," says Kaplan.

Kaplan has a bachelor's degree in English and a doctorate in organizational behavior from Yale University and lives in New York City with his wife, Becky.

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SOURCE Robert E. Kaplan